International Workshop. The origins of scientific philosophies

September 4-5, 2018
International Workshop. The origins of scientific philosophies

The aim of the workshop is to investigate the origins of scientific philosophies between the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, in the belief that the term was polysemic, encompassing different institutional projects and philosophical traditions (Helmholtz, Brentano, Tannery, the Italian journal Rivista di filosofia scientifica, Russell, Husserl, neo-Kantianism, American Pragmatism, The Berlin and Vienna Circle, Federigo Enriques, Gaston Bachelard).

Objective of the workshop will be to trace the history of the term and to compare different traditions not only on the basis of different institutional areas of activity (academic groups and journals), or of different philosophical traditions (analytic philosophy, phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, pragmatism, positivism, neo-positivism…), but also on the basis of the different role they assign to science and philosophy respectively.

Philosophy can be either assimilated to a science or distinguished by means of an autonomous research domain and method. The philosophical inquiry might be considered as having an independent legitimacy or as finding its legitimacy in the reflexive investigation of the results of sciences. The analogy between philosophy and science might be oriented by a disciplinary investigation of a particular science (psychology, mathematics, physics, linguistics, …) or guided by an interdisciplinary conception of scientific knowledge. Reactions to reductionism, scientific naturalism, and skepticism might also play a role in this framework.

Salle FRUMAM, Bâtiment 7, 2e étage,  Faculté des Sciences, Aix-Marseille Université, 3 place Victor Hugo, 13003 Marseille. 

Mardi 4 Septembre 2018

10h30              Accueil

10h45-11h15 Introduction. The origins of scientific philosophies. Paola Cantù (CGGG, Aix Marseille Université)

11h15-12h30  At the roots of probabilistic epistemology. Maria Carla Galavotti (Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione, Università di Bologna)

12h30-14h00 Pause

14h00-15h15 Reichenbach’s own style of logical analysis as a critical form of scientific philosophy. Gabriel Giovannetti (CGGG, Aix Marseille Université)

15h15-16h30 Enriques and scientific philosophy. Francesca Biagioli (Institut für Philosophie Universität Wien)

16h30-17h00 Pause

17h00-18h15 Scientific philosophy and politics in Frank and Cassirer. Philippe Stamenkovic (CGGG, Aix Marseille Université)

Mercredi 5 Septembre 2018

8h00                Accueil

8h45-10h00    Symbolisme et répétition aux origines de l’épistémologie. Anne-Françoise Schmid (CGS, Université MINES ParisTech)

10h00-11h15 L’oubli de la philosophie scientifique en France. Anastasios Brenner (CRISES, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3)

11h15-12h30 La R2M comme pourvoyeuse de sciences : le cas Maximilien Winter. Charles Alunni (Pensée des sciences, ENS)

12h30-14h00 Pause

14h00-15h15  Weyl, Schlick and Husserl on scientific philosophy. Julien Bernard (CGGG, Aix Marseille Uniersité)

15h15-15h45 Pause

15h45-17h45 Table ronde

Organisation: Paola Cantù et Gabriella Crocco

Partenariat: Centre Gilles Gaston Granger (CGG UMR 7304), UFR ALLSHS, Université Aix-Marseille, CNRS.

Les langues du colloque sont le français et l’anglais. Inscription gratuite mais obligatoire.

Contact : Paola dot Cantu at univ-amu dot fr

Résumés

  1. La R2M comme pourvoyeuse de sciences : le cas Maximilien Winter (Charles Alunni, ENS)
  2. At the roots of probabilistic epistemology (Maria Carla Galavotti, University of Bologna) The view that probability is an essential ingredient of science and human knowledge at large, and that induction is an essential ingredient of scientific method, is presently broadly agreed among philosophers of science. Such a probabilistic approach is usually associated with the turn that in the Sixties of the last century was impressed to the philosophy of science by the work of authors like Patrick Suppes and Richard Jeffrey, soon followed by many others. While from that time on probabilistic epistemology has progressively flourished to the point of becoming predominant, awareness of its origins has been somewhat left behind. It can be argued that in the first decades of the Twentieth century a probabilistic view of knowledge was embraced by a number of authors working on the foundations of probability and statistics from the perspective of different disciplines, and quite irrespectively of the attitude taken towards the interpretation to be attached to the notion of probability. The conviction that “the ideal of an absolute truth is an unrealizable phantom” and that it is probability, not truth, that allows for a reconstruction of scientific knowledge in tune with scientific practice, as claimed by Hans Reichenbach in the lecture delivered at the “Neuvième Congrès International de Philosophie” (1937), was shared among others by the British Frank Ramsey and Harold Jeffreys, the Italian Bruno de Finetti, the Polish Janina Hosiasson, the French Émile Borel, Paul Lévy and Maurice Fréchet, the German Hans Reichenbach and Richard von Mises. The work of these and other authors operating at the four corners of Europe bears witness to the existence of a European tradition in probabilistic epistemology that in many respects anticipated subsequent literature from the Sixties onward.
  3. L’oubli de la philosophie scientifique en France (Anastasios Brenner, Université de Montpellier). On identifie souvent la philosophie scientifique au positivisme logique, qui se distingue par son recourt à la logique mathématique, à un critère de vérification empirique et à une démarche collaborative, à l’instar des sciences exactes. Les historiens de la philosophie des sciences ont certes admis que le concept de philosophie scientifique est antérieur. Mais ils ont cherché ces antécédents presque exclusivement dans la tradition germanophone. Or l’expression de philosophie scientifique est employée par Auguste Comte dès 1842 et reprise par Ernest Renan. Elle connaît un véritable engouement dans l’épistémologie française au tournant du XXe siècle. Il s’agira de sonder la nature de cette philosophie scientifique et sa part dans la construction de notre manière de philosopher sur la science aujourd’hui.
  4. Federigo Enriques and the methods of scientific philosophy (Francesca Biagioli, Université de Vienne). Federigo Enriques offered a synthesis of the methods that contribute to the project of scientific philosophy in Problems of Science (1906). This includes historical, logical, psychological and experimental approaches to epistemological problems that range from the foundations of mathematics to the crisis of mechanism and the autonomy of the life sciences. Scientific philosophy in Enriques’s sense aims to provide an overall account of the cognitive process by integrating these different methods rather than reducing one method to another. This paper considers how Enriques positioned himself in the early twentieth-century debate on scientific philosophy. In particular, he called for a middle ground between the continuity with scientific facts that is characteristic of positivism and the investigation of the subjective element of knowledge in the wake of Kant’s critical philosophy. I will then discuss a specific example of how Enriques integrated the methods under consideration in his work on the teaching of geometry (1900). This will shed light on the further implications of his philosophical project for the related debate on scientific education before Giovanni Gentile’s reform of the Italian school system in 1923.
  5. Symbolisme et répétition aux origines de l’épistémologie (Anne-Françoise Schmid. CGS, Université MINES ParisTech). L’épistémologie s’est constituée à un moment historique caractérisé par l’apparition d’une quantité de disciplines qui n’étaient plus réductibles à la mécanique, dont la « logistique », devenue logique mathématique. Avec le Formulaire mathématique de Peano apparaît un nouveau symbolisme, reprit et transformé par Russell. Ce symbolisme s’est heurté à des oppositions vives, en particulier celle de Poincaré. Nous voudrions montrer que celles-ci ne sont pas seulement une réaction à un nouveau formalisme, mais reposent sur des conceptions différentes de la répétition en mathématiques. L’enjeu est d’importance, car il induit des conceptions et des engagements radicalement différents dans l’interprétation des disciplines et de la généricité.
  6. Scientific philosophy and politics in Frank and Cassirer (Philippe Stamenkovic CGG). As noticed by Nemeth [2003], there are unexpected similarities between Philipp Frank’s (a prominent member of the Vienna Circle) and Ernst Cassirer’s (maybe the most famous Neo- Kantian) philosophies of science, insofar as they both see in Einstein’s theory of relativity a vindication of the concept of “relativization”, not only of “knowledge” (with respect to science, and especially physical science), but also more generally of “truth” (with respect to any field of human activity) [see Frank, 1951, Cassirer, 1921]. “Relativization”, in both cases, can be roughly understood as a qualification of (the conditions of validity of) the claim considered. However, a question Nemeth [2003] does not address is: how can the same concept (“relativization”) lead to two quite different philosophies of science (respectively Frank’s operationalism and “pragmatic theory of meaning”, and Cassirer’s neo-kantianism). To answer this question, a detailed inquiry into the meaning of “relativization” (starting from how it is concretely applied to the theory of relativity) is necessary. What is more, according to Frank the pragmatic and operational conception of meaning, together with his overarching conception of scientific method(s), furthers liberalism and democ- racy, whereas an idealistic conception of meaning would favour totalitarianism, because of its inclination for absolute (and thus unqualified) slogans. But again, this clearly is not the case of Cassirer’s (idealistic) conception, to say the least. To understand this misunderstanding, we have, again, to inquire into what is meant by “relativization”, and its relationship to “absolute principles”, which are condemned by Frank but endorsed by Cassirer. Finally, it will be enlightening to compare how Frank and Cassirer both promote rationality and democracy in society and education through their philosophical systems, although on different grounds: whereas Frank’s naturalism subordinates all rational enquiry to the scientific method, Cassirer [[1923] 1972, [1925] 1972, [1929] 1972] treats science as one “symbolic form” among others, which are all articulated by philosophy (not itself a symbolic form).
  7. Weyl, Schlick et Husserl sur la philosophie scientifique (Julien Bernard, CGG) Les membres du cercle de Vienne partageaient avec Husserl et les savants inspirés par la phénoménologie ‑comme Hermann Weyl‑ un projet consistant à donner un statut scientifique à la philosophie. Les premiers proclamaient l’advenue d’une « philosophie scientifique », là où les seconds voulaient faire de la philosophie « une science rigoureuse ». Pourtant, derrière des expressions semblables, se cachent des conceptions de la science et de ses rapports à la philosophie radicalement opposées. La tension qui en résulte éclata notamment dans la critique émise par Schlick à l’égard de la méthode phénoménologique, et dans la réponse que fera Husserl et ses partisans. Le premier enjeu de cette controverse concerne la place d’une expérience intuitive en première personne dans la constitution de la science. Pour Schlick, la physique, science expérimentale mathématisée, est le modèle de toute science, et ce modèle va jusqu’à contraindre le discours de la théorie de la connaissance. Pour Schlick, pour que la philosophie soit « scientifique » elle doit, comme la science elle-même, ne reposer que sur des expériences partageables, portant sur l’objet commun d’un discours intersubjectif. Elle passe par la construction conceptuelle et non par l’intuition. L’expérience vécue en première personne par la conscience, que cela soit l’« Ego Cogito » cartésien ou le discours phénoménologique husserlien, est d’emblée exclue de la philosophie scientifique. Le deuxième enjeu concerne la place, dans la théorie de la connaissance, pour des principes aprioriques parmi les fondements de la science. S’il y a continuité de méthode entre la philosophie scientifique et la science elle-même, alors la théorie de la connaissance devrait rejeter toute réflexion apriorique qui contraindrait de l’extérieur le discours empirique de la science. Entre la fin du XIXe siècle et les années 1920, les anciens cadres prétendus s’imposer apriori à la science (la géométrie euclidienne et les principes de la mécanique newtonienne) se sont effondrés. La théorie de la connaissance doit-elle alors rejeter le synthétique apriori et soumettre son discours aux seules données de l’expérience et à la construction mathématique ? Les défenseurs de l’apriori se réfugient dans une forme d’apriori qui est « historicisé » ou « relativisé », brouillant les relations entre la théorie de la connaissance et le discours scientifique lui-même. Non seulement les néokantiens, mais aussi les husserliens, et même des représentants du cercle de Vienne ont exploré cette stratégie. Nous détaillerons la position d’Hermann Weyl sur cette question. Il pense que, même si la théorie de la connaissance devrait précéder de droit le discours de la science lui-même, le discours philosophique doit de fait se construire en dialogue avec l’histoire des sciences, suite aux imperfections de l’acte réflexif par lequel la raison théorique se saisit elle-même.
  8. Reichenbach’s own style of logical analysis as a critical form of scientific philosophy (Gabriel Giovannetti, CGGG). In his first book ever published, discussing the theory of Relativity, The Theory of Relativity and a priori Knowledge (1920), Reichenbach explains how the most fundamental principles of Einstein’s theory contradict the philosophical principles that can be deduced from Kant’s epistemology. The core of the analysis is based on what Reichenbach calls a « logical analysis » : the aim of this analysis is to compare the principles of a physical theory to the principles of a philosophical theory, each set of principles being expressed in ordinary language (nor artificial nor formal), in order to reveal a contradiction. Both sets of principles cannot be true jointly. To avoid the contradiction one set of principles must be abandoned. For Reichenbach it is an empirical matter whether one set of principles must be chosen over another : if a physical theory is precise enough to be compatible with the results of experiments and observations, its principles must be preferred over the principles of a philosophical theory of knowledge that contradicts them. This way of operating the choice is the first aspect of the logical analysis as a scientific philosophy But Reichenbach also recognize that a fundamental physical principle can be non-univocal. Hence, the choice of the set of principles cannot be solely empirical. But according to the philosopher it cannot be neither based on reason only – as Kant defended – nor on purely conventional criteria – as Poincaré and Schlick proposed. From that fact derives the now famous “relativization” of the a priori realized by Reichenbach. This relativization must be seen as a way to reduce the role of reason, and to increase the role of the empirical results in the choice of the principles. Ultimately the choice can be made only by taking into account the history of a theory and of its principles (and therefore of the concepts it contains), making Reichenbach logical analysis very close to Duhem’s claim that “writing the history of a physical principle is at the same time making a logical analysis of it”. In this thesis emerges the first critic of the logical-empiricism that will develop Schlick and Carnap : a philosophical analysis of science cannot be based on strictly scientific criteria (i.e. empirical evidence or a priori demonstrations) but has to take into account the history of reason.